Paint Roller

A new paint roller makes painting a breeze. The roller holds latex paint in a hollow 22-inch handle and releases it like a syringe. The product holds enough paint to cover about 70 square feet and eliminates the need for a ladder or a roller tray. Includes a snap-on paint shield.The Handi-Roller is made by Wagner Spray Tech Corp., P.O. Box 9362, Minneapolis, Minn. 55440. Price: $15. Avaliable at home centers and hardware stores.

In Orange County, there's a graffiti turf war raging. The good guys are Philip "Smitty" Smith and Kurt Fasnacht, code-enforcement officers. The bad guys: bands of bored teenagers and gangsters slinking around, armed with spray-paint cans and bad attitudes. By night, these marauders paint gang symbols and even political commentary on walls, fences, doors and abandoned buildings. By day, Fasnacht and Smith are on their tails. They plod hours, days or weeks behind these vandals, always searching for the latest misdeeds.

A man accused of throwing a metal paint-roller rod that speared a teen-ager's head was convicted of murder. Juan Alcocer, 21, was the third man to be found guilty of second-degree murder in the October 1993 attack on Steve Woods by a group of youths throwing roadside junk at cars. Woods, 17, died a month after the rod went through his brain. He never regained consciousness. Alcocer also was convicted Tuesday of conspiracy to assault, assault with a deadly weapon and the allegation that the attack was gang-related.

Pavan Talakala is a lot more comfortable with a computer keyboard than a paint roller. Nevertheless, the Indian graduate student in computer science joined 20 fellow students and professors from the University of Central Florida in dutifully applying primer Saturday to the dingy white walls of the American Red Cross building on Bumby Avenue in Orlando. It was a hot, four-hour job, but nobody complained. It was, the volunteers explained, their contribution to Orlando's first National Gandhi Day of Service.

RICHARD CROXTON ADAMS, 76, inventor of the paint roller, died Wednesday. The engineer and industrialist developed the device in his basement workshop in 1940 while working for Sherwin-Williams Paint Co. The invention was spurred by a shortage of paint brushes caused by World War II. Adams was a descendant of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

Here are some hints to make household chores easier:- Keep a roll of duct tape on hand. Besides plugging leaks in pipes, the tape can be used to fix furniture, remove lint from clothing, tack up hems and cover scrapes on luggage.- Buff and shine chrome fixtures with a small amount of lemon oil on a soft cloth.- Paint every other step of your staircase. This will enable you to climb the unpainted steps as the wet surfaces dry; finish the rest of the stairs when first phase of painting is dry.- Keep fabric-softener sheets in the hamper, wastebaskets, dresser drawers and under humidifier vents to eliminate musty smells.

If you've seen one photo frame, you've seen them all, right?Wrong.Burnes of Boston, the same company that brought us the collage frame and the photo cube, is introducing the Showbox photo viewer.From the outside, the Showbox viewer looks like a standard frame, but pull the drawer on the back and you'll discover that the Showbox can hold up to 40 pictures.To change the picture in the frame, or to view all 40 pictures, slide open the drawer on the back and the next photo in the pile will appear in the frame.

Being a lint picker is time-consuming. Unfortunately, lint doesn't stop at clothes. It gets on furniture, walls and other surfaces. A small lint brush isn't large enough to tackle a bigger mess, but you can make a large lint brush from a paint roller. Use masking tape to cover the paint roller -- only put the tape on with the sticky side out. This way, you can move the paint roller over the furniture or a wall, and it will pick up all of the lint and hair that's on the surface. When the tape gets full of fuzz, just peel it off, tape and all, and wrap more tape on. It's a simple way to take care of a hairy problem.

Semi-solid paint is the term used for a new type of wall-and-ceiling latex paint with the brand name Ready-to-Roll.Ready-to-Roll, sold in the paint departments of Sears stores and scheduled to be a Sears catalog item soon, is packaged in a resealable plastic paint tray so that no pouring or stirring is required.The semi-solid quality of the paint, which has the consistency of a gel or thick custard, is intended to reduce drips and spatters. The paint is said to store ''indefinitely'' without drying out and the container won't rust since there are no metal parts.

So you've finally picked out the perfect wallpaper to replace the old paper in your bathroom. Now all you have to do is remove the old paper. If you start at a corner and try to pull it off, you'll be lucky if it all comes down in large pieces. Most of the time, it tears and leaves swatches behind. Steam or even hot water can be helpful in getting the rest of the paper off the wall. There is a neat little rotary cutter called a Paper Tiger that works great to perforate the wall covering to let some of the moisture get to the old glue.

So you've finally picked out the perfect wallpaper to replace the old paper in your bathroom. Now all you have to do is remove the old paper. If you start at a corner and try to pull it off, you'll be lucky if it all comes down in large pieces. Most of the time, it tears and leaves swatches behind. Steam or even hot water can be helpful in getting the rest of the paper off the wall. There is a neat little rotary cutter called a Paper Tiger that works great to perforate the wall covering to let some of the moisture get to the old glue.

Spreading adhesive for tiles or any number of other projects is best done with a notched trowel. This will ensure that you get an even distribution and depth of glue over the surface. If you don't have a notched trowel, you can easily make one from a plastic butter-tub lid or a plastic coffee-can lid. Both are stout enough to stand up to the adhesive and are easy to cut. Use pinking shears to get a notched edge. If you cut the lid down the middle, you can have a friend help you spread the adhesive or just save the other half for your next glue job. When you have finished applying the adhesive, you can throw away the lid -- no clean-up.

Being a lint picker is time-consuming. Unfortunately, lint doesn't stop at clothes. It gets on furniture, walls and other surfaces. A small lint brush isn't large enough to tackle a bigger mess, but you can make a large lint brush from a paint roller. Use masking tape to cover the paint roller -- only put the tape on with the sticky side out. This way, you can move the paint roller over the furniture or a wall, and it will pick up all of the lint and hair that's on the surface. When the tape gets full of fuzz, just peel it off, tape and all, and wrap more tape on. It's a simple way to take care of a hairy problem.

A man accused of throwing a metal paint-roller rod that speared a teen-ager's head was convicted of murder. Juan Alcocer, 21, was the third man to be found guilty of second-degree murder in the October 1993 attack on Steve Woods by a group of youths throwing roadside junk at cars. Woods, 17, died a month after the rod went through his brain. He never regained consciousness. Alcocer also was convicted Tuesday of conspiracy to assault, assault with a deadly weapon and the allegation that the attack was gang-related.

The one thing I remember most about painting a room is that no matter how small the room looks, as soon as I pick up a paintbrush, I realize just how large it really is. What I originally envision as a two-hour chore suddenly turns into an almost unending project.Yes, painting is time-consuming. Even worse, it is messy. But there is a new generation of painting products that makes painting walls, furniture and even houses easier than ever before.Take painting a room, for example. The standard method is to use a paint roller.

Here are some hints to make household chores easier:- Keep a roll of duct tape on hand. Besides plugging leaks in pipes, the tape can be used to fix furniture, remove lint from clothing, tack up hems and cover scrapes on luggage.- Buff and shine chrome fixtures with a small amount of lemon oil on a soft cloth.- Paint every other step of your staircase. This will enable you to climb the unpainted steps as the wet surfaces dry; finish the rest of the stairs when first phase of painting is dry.- Keep fabric-softener sheets in the hamper, wastebaskets, dresser drawers and under humidifier vents to eliminate musty smells.

Cutting extra-long wood calls for an extra-long table or support. You can improvise by mounting a paint roller on top of your sawhorse. Drill a hole through the top of the sawhorse and stick the handle of the paint roller into it or clamp it to the horse and adjust it to the proper height. The long work piece will ride across the roller as you saw.PROBLEM SOLVINGREADER'S TIP: If you nail into the light part of the wood rather than the dark, you will have much less splitting. My dad taught me to do this, and I've done it with great success.

If you've seen one photo frame, you've seen them all, right?Wrong.Burnes of Boston, the same company that brought us the collage frame and the photo cube, is introducing the Showbox photo viewer.From the outside, the Showbox viewer looks like a standard frame, but pull the drawer on the back and you'll discover that the Showbox can hold up to 40 pictures.To change the picture in the frame, or to view all 40 pictures, slide open the drawer on the back and the next photo in the pile will appear in the frame.

This is the time of year when people up North go inside their houses and say, ''Uh-oh!''Because they realize they're going to be stuck in there through the upcoming dreary days of winter and they're not sure they like the color of the paint anymore.Every year on exactly Sept. 15, I decide I do not like the color of my paint. And then I do the only practical thing a young person with energy and creativity and the flair-for-the-unusual would do - I lie on the couch watch TV for a while.This, however, fails to alter the color of the paint on the first try.Then I go down to the hardware store and buy those little rainbow-colored things called ''chips'' and paste them up on my wall and squint at them for a few days, and try to imagine what the whole room would look like ''that way.'' (This is roughly analagous to trying to select a future spouse-for-life based on that person's driver's license photo.